The Value Of A Twitter Follower

Twitter’s latest white-paper is The Value of a Follower. It’s full to the brim with stats and infographics, explaining the value Twitter followers can bring to small and medium sized businesses (SMBs).

90% use Twitter at least weekly & 57% are daily users

This is just a snapshot of the kind of people Twitter were surveying. The majority are using Twitter every day of the week, though only 30% see tweets from SMBs each time they take a look at their timeline.

30% is pretty low. We’re not saying that your business needs to be one of those ever-present tweeters that has a 140-character line about any trending topic. What we’re saying is that businesses could do a better job of maintain awareness on Twitter.

For better understanding of how your current set of followers use Twitter, we really recommend Followerwonk. Yeah, it’s probably the worst name ever, but it allows users to see when their followers are most active on Twitter and can integrate these times with your Buffer schedule.

66% of users have discovered a new SMB through Twitter

This is really important because…

People following SMBs are really likely to make multiple purchases from the companies in question. This is pretty convincing, it’s a dream set of stats for someone writing about the importance of marketing your business on Twitter.

Building a solid group of followers pretty much equates to finding a bunch of regular customers. Twitter users that follow your company are engaged in your brand, they’re looking for new product releases or information about services you provide.

83% of people had a better opinion of a SMB after receiving a reply

We’ve been banging on about the importance of messaging potential customers on Twitter and Facebook for a while, sorry to any long term fans that have seen this a thousand times.

Replying to customer on social media is INCREDIBLY important. It’s a major point of contact for current and potential customers, just like people walking into your offices or calling your company.

It’s also a dead easy way to improve your brand’s image. It’s a free pass to have a personal interaction with a customer. If they’ve got an issue to solve, good customer service through social media could be the difference that keeps them on your books.

68% of users have followed an SMB after seeing a promoted account

So, these stats are good and we all love infographics, but how do you get followers?

Paid promotion.

I was a little surprised whilst reading the stats on promoted accounts. I expected lower figures, more users to automatically ignore the ads, but I was wrong.

These ads really work. Almost 70% of Twitter users have followed a promoted account. If you can get the targeting right, you’ll find a customer that is likely to make at least one purchase from your company.

This means you’ll need to get deep into Twitter’s targeting options for promoted accounts. There’s a load of different options, including interests, behaviour, location. Probably the most interesting option allows advertisers to target people that follow specific accounts. Put in the names of your competitors and you’ll get your company in front of their customers.

Hey, did you know we offer Twitter marketing services to small and medium sized businesses? Use the handy little contact form at the side of the blog if you’d like to find out more. To stay up to date with the latest social media information and digital marketing strategy, follow us on Twitter or like our Facebook page.